Children's Day

This past Saturday was Children's Day, and the art center near our house was putting on an event for kids, with a magic show, bouncy house, etc.  Our school decided to use this opportunity to advertise.  They asked us a few days in advance to work there from 10-12, handing out rulers and balloons advertising the school.  We didn't want to, but didn't have an excuse handy.  They expect us to give up part of our Saturday, and they don't pay us for these hours.  We agreed to go, but we also decided that we needed an escape plan so that we could actually get out of there at 12:00.  We found out about a baseball game in Seoul at 2:00, and planned to use that as our afternoon plans.

We arrived at the place at 10:00 with boxes of rulers and balloons, and a five-foot helium tank.  Only after we arrived there did we realize that no one had bothered to call to see if we were allowed to be there.  It was a structured event, everyone else had their own booths and permits, and we were just standing in a corner.  The organizers of the event came over and asked what we were doing.  They explained that of course schools would want to advertise to a bunch of kids in one place, which is why they don't let them do that.  But they agreed to let us hand out rulers and balloons, as long as we don't specifically talk about the school, which Brady and I can't do anyway.  Plus, we were supposed to have a license or permit to operate the helium tank, because it's dangerous, and we didn't have that.

We started blowing up balloons with the helium.  The problem was that we didn't have strings for the balloons to tie to wrists, we had these long straws.  You can't hand a helium balloon on a straw to a four-year-old and expect them to hold onto it.  At any given point throughout the day you could look up and see at least a dozen balloons in the sky.  So we had given up our Saturday morning to pollute and market to families that were just trying to enjoy Children's Day.

Then, at 11:45 they asked us if we could stay for the afternoon, to go to a different Children's Day event.  We immediately said no.  "We have to catch the 3007 bus to arrive at Jilsun Stadium for a 2:00 game featuring the Doosun Bears and the LG Twins."  We had all the details of our lie worked out in advance.  But they made Pam stay for the afternoon.  Again, I just think it's outrageous that they would tell us that we had to work for two hours on a Saturday, and then have that two hours turn into six hours, and give us nothing in return.